The New York Yankees called up shortstop George Lombard Jr. last month as he officially made his long-awaited debut on August 4 against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Since then, Lombard has had a roller-coaster month. He started off strong, dazzling with the glove and the bat, but started to falter as August came to a close.
The 21-year-old has already committed seven errors on the season and now owns a .253 batting average, .310 on-base percentage and .677 OPS across his first 79 big-league at-bats. Regardless, that is too small of a sample size to judge the former first-round pick and top Yankees prospect.
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Unfortunately, Lombard has missed three straight games due to right knee discomfort. He suffered the injury last Saturday during a game against the Boston Red Sox, causing him to leave early and he has not played since.
He did undergo further testing and the prognosis has been that Lombard will not require a stint on the 10-day injured list. However, with him once again out of the lineup for Wednesday's series finale against the Los Angeles Angels, the Yankees were starting to run out of options if he did not progress. Fortunately, Lombard is looking to make his return.
The Yankees revealed that the hope and expectation for Lombard's return will be Friday for the series opener against the San Diego Padres, per Greg Joyce of the New York Post. With New York off Thursday, that gives Lombard five full days off his feet to recover.
If Lombard does suffer any sort of setback he will likely land on the 10-day injured list. However, for now the expectation is that he returns to his usual spot up the middle on Friday.
Lombard will have four weeks to prove he belongs in the big leagues and hopefully avoid any further downward trends as October baseball approaches.
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